is this the feeling i need to walk with?

Yeahh, that was Backstreet Boys, in case you were wondering. There is NOTHING wrong with boy bands from back when we were like ten. Seriously.

"i've seen this one too many times"

I haven't blogged in forever for a few reasons. Mostly I've been cooped up doing homework for APLit & APUSH. But aside from that, band has consumed my life. I can't hardly walk & my shoulders absolutely kill. I'm sunburnt beyond recognition and my nerves are shot from freshmen, underclassmen, upperclassmen, leadership, entitled beneficiaries, prostaff and admin. I almost fell asleep at 6.30 tonight. People try talking to me and I just sort of ignore them. I'm irritable and quite honestly, I don't have the patience or 'intestinal fortitude' that it would require for me to deal with ninety percent of the crap going on in my life. So this has led to a semi-revelation. I'm eliminating all of the complicated things. I'm tired of using the excuse "it's complicated". That's a cop-out if I've ever seen one. I'm not going to be that person anymore. I'm going to be the girl who lives for the few things in her life that really matter.

"please come and stay with me / i don't what to do / if once more i lose you / it would tear me in two"

I recently went back to church for the first time in a long time. I met up with God halfway. That's all I had to do. I feel so relieved of all that was plaguing me, like all of those weights have been carried off into the distance. The things that put me ill at ease at night in bed no longer haunt me. I am free to be the person I know I can and should be, without the restraints I had to fight previously. I feel light and refreshed. There is not a better feeling in the world. And it only comes from Him.

"every little thing i do / never seems enough for you / you don't want to lose it again / but i'm not like them"

'NSync came on too. What do you know. It's my lucky day. Seriously. So many things have gone RIGHT today, that the small things that have gone wrong are superfluous. Really.

"lighting the fuse might result with a bang with a bang go"

Go fall in love. It changes your world.

As a side-note, for those of you who know the situation, I am telling the boy back home to take a hike.

only you will do.

Well. Here we go. I'm ready to do this. I'm ready to sign my life off to something I love, ready to take the fall whether I'm caught or not. And then you question my intentions and means. Well. That means a lot. Thank you. I know you're going to pull your head out of your butt but could you please speed the process so I can just put a band-aid over the hole in my heart and get over it?

"i am finally seeing that i was the one worth leaving"

I've been extremely productive the past few days. I'm actually really proud of myself for that. I completely finished the assignment for Invisible Man and read The Scarlet Letter and am currently working on the LRF for that, as well as reading Catch-22. I've become an extremely target-oriented person, to the point that I do the things I hate as soon as possible simply because I know that the faster I do them, the less time I have to think about them. It has changed my life in a fantastic way. I'm actually accomplishing things. Also, I have time for more exciting things. Like coffee with Ace in the morning. And who wouldn't love that?

"you pray your dreams will leave you here / but still you wake and know the truth / no one's there"

I feel like a new person. The butterfly shedding her cocoon. I hate that metaphor. It's so... Beyond cliche. The point is, I'm the same Danielle I've always been. I'm just doing some seriously fast-paced morphing at present. It seems that each day I'm coming a little more into my own. I'm letting go, living without fear, and dragging them all down with me. I love it. Without a doubt, I have a passion for the person I can be at my best, and a passion to alter the person I am when I'm not at my best. I've come to realize that there's something to strive for every day. There is always something to look to for inspiration, whether it's God, whether it's your muse, whether it's your ideal of life, the love of your life, preservation of your life. Always, something to see on the horizon, running and running until your legs are not your own and you question when you acquired this ethereal strength. That strength is growth. It is evolution. It is strife, pain, fear, love, death, preservation. When you hurt and you hurt and you die and then you pull through, that's your life changing. That's you, taking what's yours, not taking no for an answer, and fighting for yourself. Because in the end, we are all we have to fight for. You don't own your boyfriend. You don't own your Pomeranian liability. You don't own your job, your Chanel sunglasses, or your respectable wardrobe. They own you until you break out and define yourself apart. You spend your whole life fighting for someone else, or what you own, or who you associate with, or the words of a dead burnout, and you've wasted everything you've given yourself and been given by someone better. There are no guarantees anymore. You've lost those with your repose at the beginning of this introspect. All you have is yourself to strive for. Beat yourself up, and get through. You are the only variable that can be controlled. Fix what's wrong with you. Get over yourself. Get over your pains. Get over your vanity and your possessions and your worries and fears and priorities and get a grip. You're wasting away everything you're allowed to have by outsourcing your happiness and control.

"don't you get it don't you get it don't you get it no don't you move"

Improve yourself. It's the only thing you can count on in the end. Your clothes will fall from style, your dog will contract rabies, your boyfriend will leave you, and your PotteryBarn perfect living room will catch on fire in a horrific freak accident when you're on a business trip. What's left?

turn me off.

I will start by saying that I am so proud of you that I can't even believe it. The person you were three years ago when we started this thing together is still there. I can see him in your eyes when they laugh and I can feel him in your arms around me and hear him in your voice when you call me to tell me everything's going to be okay. And yet you're not the same you you used to be by a longshot. You've grown miles in Homer's footsteps and I could never ask for more than the warmth you radiate from a distance unimaginably cold. I miss you with every fibre of my being and yet I feel you flowing through my veins, powering my every movement. There will never be enough words, enough late night talking purges with me in the closet whispering about your falsified fears, enough eyelash wishes to show you what you mean to me, and how much I need you around just to keep me running.

"come down now they'll say / but everything looks perfect from far away / come down now but we'll stay"

With that being said, hello "home." The more I do this going back and forth business, the more I realize that this is not my home. Nor is St. Louis. Or Florida or Massachusetts or California or Nantucket. It's this feeling I know how to find but can rarely do. But I'm working on it. I'm working towards it more often and with more ease. I can't explain it, but I feel like I am charged and ready to hit the world now. Mostly because I have the ammunition I need to get through. I feel like I need to go beat something up. Not because I'm upset, but because I could, and I have something to prove but not really. Mostly not. Why? Because who the heck do I need to impress? No one. I don't care what they think anymore, whoever THEY are. THEY can go smoke a popsicle stick for all I care. Seriously. Go do it.

"i wanna be the place you call home"

Anyhow. I love everybody and they hardly love me the same way but that's just fine. When has that stopped me before? HEY. It hasn't. Whaddaya know.